


Night Terror

by ssstrychnine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'll roll over and hold him tightly<br/>And scream, "if you want him, oh you're gonna have to fight me"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Terror

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Shuffled challenge on the J/B forums. Song is Laura Marling's Night Terror and I cheated a little bit with that sorry :x

Every night there is screaming. From her or from Jaime or from Pod clawing at his throat with fingernails trimmed close so he doesn't rip the scar. When it’s Jaime, Brienne knows even in sleep. She’s on her feet, sword in hand, in an instant. Every time. 

“You can’t have him, fight _me_!” she screams before realising that there’s no one and Jaime is asleep and it’s only dreaming. 

She shakes him awake and she ignores the tears on his cheeks and the dry skin peeling from his lips. Stoneheart was hard on all of them.

Brienne’s dreams are cold. She calls Jaime to her as she sits curled around a candle then burns the hand he holds out (his right hand, flesh and blood not gold) until the flesh bubbles. His eyes don’t leave her face and she leaves his bones to Stoneheart. When they are awake, he doesn't speak to her.

She’s woken by his screaming.

“Fight me,” she whispers when he’s asleep again and quiet.

She hadn't said those words when they were needed. When Stoneheart and Thoros used flames and frost to make Jaime’s eyes go hollow and his knees give out and his palm bleed. He hasn't stopped shaking since they left and Brienne should have _stopped it_. She had screamed _sword_ at the noose but she hadn't drawn it. She had screamed _sword_ but she hadn't been brave enough to back it up, too caught up in oaths. 

It had been Jaime, battling with words, braver than anything in the world while on his knees and streaked in dirt and blood and vomit. Jaime’s words had got them out of it. Jaime’s words had sent them back on their mission, to find the Stark girls. Jaime’s words had included Brienne and he hasn't spoken to her since. 

“If you want her, you will have to fight me,” Jaime says in her dreams, to Biter and to Rorge, and a sob escapes her lips like she’s choking. 

He fights her battles and he gives her a rose and she crushes it under her foot.

They reach the Vale, where Sansa Stark is rumoured to be, Petyr Baelish’s sprung-from-nowhere bastard daughter. It’s beautiful and it’s cold and Brienne can’t help thinking of Stoneheart and what she was before. Catelyn Stark. She hopes that Sansa hasn't grown so cold. 

“Petyr won’t let her go,” Jaime says, startling her ghost white. “Will you fight this time?” 

"I-I will,” Brienne stammers and Jaime nods.

Brienne fights. Cuts down Baelish while Sansa Stark screams behind her and she thinks she’s heard enough screaming for a thousand lifetimes. The girl (a highborn maid of three and ten, with a fair face and _chestnut_ hair) streaks passed her, knife in fist, and turns Baelish’s face into a red mess before Brienne can drag her away.

Their dreams start to quiet and Pod’s scar heals and Jaime’s voice comes back. He starts speaking to her. He sleeps closer to her. He smiles sometimes, he calls her Wench. They spar in the evenings. Brienne is gentle to the girl (who is cold like walls but not like death) and dreads taking her to the thing that used to be her mother. 

Brienne wakes one night to Jaime’s voice stirring her hair. He isn't asleep, she knows immediately, and he’s saying her name.

“I hit a man,” he tells her. “I hit a man for insulting you.”

“I was called Kingslayer’s Whore by Stoneheart’s men,” Brienne whispers back, made brave by the night. “I called your name, you were in my fever dreams.”

“You are in all of my dreams.”

“I fight for you in all of my dreams.”

He curls into her, holds her hand to his chest, and they fall back asleep. 

In her dreams they smile at one another, fierce as knives and as sure as the Wall and he bows and she bows and they stand side by side with swords in opposite hands and they fight a thousand enemies together and kiss the blood from each other's faces after and hold each other close and Brienne knows she will bring this dream into waking.


End file.
